Editing Aldous Huxley (section)

== Eyesight ==
{{stack|[[File:Aldous Huxley 1947.png|thumb|upright|Huxley (age 52) in 1947, his right eye affected by [[keratitis]], which he had contracted in 1911]]}}
Differing accounts exist about the details of the quality of Huxley's eyesight at specific points in his life. Circa 1939, Huxley encountered the [[Bates method]], in which he was instructed by [[Margaret Darst Corbett]]. In 1940, Huxley relocated from Hollywood to a {{convert|40|acre|ha|adj=on}} ''ranchito'' in the high desert hamlet of [[Llano, California]], in northern [[Los Angeles County]]. Huxley then said that his sight improved dramatically with the Bates method and the extreme and pure natural lighting of the southwestern American desert. He reported that, for the first time in more than 25 years, he was able to read without glasses and without strain. He even tried driving a car along the dirt road beside the ranch. He wrote a book about his experiences with the Bates method, ''[[The Art of Seeing]]'', which was published in 1942 (U.S.), 1943 (UK). The book contained some generally disputed theories, and its publication created a growing degree of popular controversy about Huxley's eyesight.<ref>{{cite book |title=Aldous Huxley Annual |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ZYFcahCQm4wC&pg=PA109 |publisher=LIT Verlag Münster |date=28 February 2011 |isbn=978-3-643-10450-2 |language=en |first1=Bernfried |last1=Nugel |first2=Jerome |last2=Meckier |page=111 |chapter=A New Look at The Art of Seeing}}</ref>

It was, and is, widely believed that Huxley was nearly blind since the illness in his teens, despite the partial recovery that had enabled him to study at Oxford. For example, some ten years after publication of ''The Art of Seeing'', in 1952, [[Bennett Cerf]] was present when Huxley spoke at a Hollywood banquet, wearing no glasses and apparently reading his paper from the lectern without difficulty: {{blockquote|Then suddenly he faltered—and the disturbing truth became obvious. He wasn't reading his address at all. He had learned it by heart. To refresh his memory he brought the paper closer and closer to his eyes. When it was only an inch or so away he still couldn't read it, and had to fish for a magnifying glass in his pocket to make the typing visible to him. It was an agonising moment.<ref>Cerf, Bennett (12 April 1952), ''The Saturday Review'' (column), quoted in {{cite book |last=Gardner |first=Martin |author-link=Martin Gardner |title=Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science |year=1957 |publisher=Dover Publications |isbn=978-0-486-20394-2|title-link=Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science }}</ref>}}

Brazilian author [[João Ubaldo Ribeiro]], who as a young journalist spent several evenings in the Huxleys' company in the late 1950s, wrote that Huxley had said to him, with a wry smile: "I can hardly see at all. And I don't give a damn, really."<ref>{{cite book |title=O Conselheiro Come |publisher=Editora Nova Fronteira |date=2000 |isbn=978-85-209-1069-6 |language=pt |page=[https://archive.org/details/oconselheirocome00ribe/page/92 92] |url=https://archive.org/details/oconselheirocome00ribe/page/92 }}</ref>

On the other hand, Huxley's second wife Laura later emphasised in her biographical account, ''This Timeless Moment'': "One of the great achievements of his life: that of having regained his sight." After revealing a letter she wrote to the ''Los Angeles Times'' disclaiming the label of Huxley as a "poor fellow who can hardly see" by [[Walter C. Alvarez]], she tempered her statement: {{blockquote|Although I feel it was an injustice to treat Aldous as though he were blind, it is true there were many indications of his impaired vision. For instance, although Aldous did not wear glasses, he would quite often use a magnifying lens.<ref>{{cite book |last=Huxley |first=Laura |title=This Timeless Moment |url=https://archive.org/details/thistimelessmome00huxl |url-access=registration |year=1968 |publisher=Farrar, Straus & Giroux |location=New York |isbn=978-0-89087-968-9}}</ref>}} Laura Huxley proceeded to elaborate a few nuances of inconsistency peculiar to Huxley's vision. Her account, in this respect, agrees with the following sample of Huxley's own words from ''The Art of Seeing'': {{blockquote|The most characteristic fact about the functioning of the total organism, or any part of the organism, is that it is not constant, but highly variable.<ref>Huxley, Aldous (n.d.). "The Art of Seeing".</ref>}} Nevertheless, the topic of Huxley's eyesight has continued to endure similar, significant controversy.<ref>Rolfe, Lionel (1981) ''Literary LA'' p. 50. Chronicle Books, 1981. University of California.</ref>

American popular science author [[Steven Johnson (author)|Steven Johnson]], in his book ''Mind Wide Open'', quotes Huxley about his difficulties with [[Encoding (memory)#Visual encoding|visual encoding]]: {{blockquote|I am and, for as long as I can remember, I have always been a poor visualizer. Words, even the pregnant words of poets, [[Aphantasia|do not evoke pictures in my mind]]. No hypnagogic visions greet me on the verge of sleep. When I recall something, the memory does not present itself to me as a vividly seen event or object. By an effort of the will, I can evoke a not very vivid image of what happened yesterday afternoon&nbsp;...<ref>Huxley, ''The Doors of Perception and Heaven and Hell'', Harper Perennial, 1963, p. 15.</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Johnson |first=Steven |author-link=Steven Johnson (author) |title=Mind Wide Open: Your Brain and the Neuroscience of Everyday Life |location=New York |publisher=Scribner |year=2004 |page=[https://archive.org/details/mindwideopen00stev/page/235 235] |isbn=978-0-7432-4165-6 |url=https://archive.org/details/mindwideopen00stev/page/235 }}</ref>}}